Bonjour + Ciao Does Savannah

/ Viv@Grief Happens

After my last two posts…I need a happy diversion.

How about you?

The older I get, the more I realize how a full life is made up of delightful and lovely, as well as gut-wrenching and horrid. There’s also the run-of-the-mill. The mundane. The in between.

I strive to embrace it all.

Today I stumbled onto the neatest travel blog — Bonjour + Ciao

You simply MUST check it out. I’m looking forward to diving in deeper when I have more than a few minutes.

I was struck with the post I linked because EVERY place the author highlighted is one of my favorites.

I love love love Savannah, Georgia.

Although I’m a Georgia native, I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta and didn’t discover the jewel that is Savannah until my early twenties. I’m ashamed now to admit that as a twenty-something metropolis dwelling jet-setter (at least that’s how I perceived myself back then), I found the Southern port city SLOW…

But after the frenetic pace of Atlanta, I decided that slower might be rather refreshing and for the past ten years Coastal GA has been my home. This past summer we moved to the islands that skirt metro Savannah.

Oh what a glorious change. I feel like I’ve come home… words that were yet to flow from my mouth prior to the move.

I hope to write more about my obsession with place and how I’ve always just gotten a feel that says ‘this is where I’m supposed to be’ or ‘I could live here.’ It’s like I have a bizarre sixth sense.

Savannah IS that for me.

I’m in a transitional and complicated phase right now.

I’ve never been less certain of what the future holds.

But I’m pretty darned sure that in some form or fashion, Savannah will be home for my remaining days.

I feel IT here.

The moss.

The oak trees.

The history — complicated as it may be…

The marsh.

The ocean.

Even the humidity.

All of it speaks to me…guiding me like wise old pals.

It’s like they’re speaking to me intuitively in a way that burrows in my cells.

In my soul.

Be still and know.

You’re here; it’s alright; YOU’RE alright. All you have to do is breathe in and out. No more. No less.

Where is YOUR place? Where do you FEEL — this is where I’m supposed to be?

And don’t forget to check out Bonjour + Ciao 

 

 

 

 

14 thoughts on “Bonjour + Ciao Does Savannah”

  1. That place for me is Paris. (I like Savannah a lot but it would feel too small to me.)

    I know, what a cliche! But I had a life-changing year-long journalism fellowship there at 25, speak French and have been back many times. I like their values: food, friends, beauty, intellectual conversation and thought. I live in NY but am increasingly turned off by the toxicity of American political values and behavior. I hope to live in Paris, or France, in retirement, even part-time; I can get an EU passport thanks to an Irish grandfather so it might be possible.

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  2. I am a national park person and gone to several so far in the US. I have a lot more to see and am always planning my next trip. I am also an animal/nature person so I like to see animals on every trip. I have held a baby tiger and touched an adult liger in Myrtle Beach, drove through a bear park in SD, been very close to a mother and baby moose and drove through a heard of 100s of buffalo in Yellowstone WY. So much more to see! Never say “someday I would like to so this”, do it NOW.

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  3. I’m proud of you for writing about all aspects of life – not just Debbie Downer stuff and not just Pollyanna- flavored flavors either! 😉

    I’ve never been to Savannah, but it sounds beautiful. When I hear about that area, I always think of Kevin Spacey & “Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil” – I can’t help it. (That is where the story takes place, right?) I think about Savannah in a *positive* way from that association!!!!

    My happy place is where I am now, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and also where I grew up in West L.A. in the 1970’s. Now, it’s a 100% different place and it makes me sad it has become McMansioned and occupied solely by the filthy rich.

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    • I think I’ve shared with you before how much I LOVE California. As I’m typing this, I have Santa Cruz Mountain “images” pulled up next to me on my iPad, and I have to say, that area is one of the most visually majestic areas imaginable. I want to book a trip now and just go. I’ve spent a good bit of time in San Francisco, but I haven’t explored more outside of the city. As a flight attendant, I frequented San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, so I’ve seen stark differences in different California cities, but I want more immersion. I’ve spent more extended time in San Francisco on vacation (several different trips) and then I had college friends who settled in San Diego, so I also spent extended time there visiting them, but I haven’t exactly explored the Santa Cruz Mountain area. I think it’s the beauty and the combination of mountain and sea that grabs me in CA. Hmmm…I’m thinking as I type. I haven’t been there in over ten years, but I spent so much time there in my twenties and felt like it shaped me in many ways… I really need to write more about place… I get what you’re saying about watching a place you love change and being taken over by McMansions and the filthy rich…There’s an element of that here in Georgia, too — I feel that more in Atlanta — maybe that’s why I dig Savannah as much as I do. It’s more off the grid. Native Georgians know you have to WANT to go to Savannah — it’s on the way to nowhere because of where it’s positioned geographically — I think it’s that way for the people who live here as well. They WANT to be here — the imports anyway. And a lot of natives leave but purposefully choose to return. So…what I notice here is as much about the people IN Savannah as Savannah itself. And what you said about Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil — I LOVE LOVE LOVE that book and that movie. It is SOOOO Savannah — full of mystery and characters. There’s a depth here that I can’t explain…not yet anyway. And I suppose I don’t have to explain it, but I want to dig deeper in order to understand the draw for myself. Thank you!! For your encouragement and kind words. Always. I truly appreciate it. I appreciate YOU, my friend. Obviously, this comment made me think in a more focused way about all of this…

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  4. Not that big a fan of Savannah…maybe it’s the humidity. 😉

    That place for me is the MD/VA Eastern Shore. It’s home. It says “Come here and let me give you a hug”. When I’m there I can breathe.

    We lived there for four short years but I grew up vacationing there. I’ll get back there one day I know it.

    Enjoy your center.

    Sherry

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    • It’s TOTALLY humid & I completely hated it when I first visited for that very reason. I think a big draw for me is 1) the ocean 2) it’s GA — I truly love the state of GA 3) it’s FAR from my crazy family but still in the state — we’re talking 5-6 hours away. Far but accessible if necessary. There are things I don’t like about SAV (I can tell I need to write about this more for sure) but just today i had to drive to the other side of town to have my car serviced, and the bridges and the combo of land and water and the people — lots more to say about all of this. Hmmm…I like the thought of MD/VA Eastern Shore. I haven’t spent much time there, but I like the idea of it — beach with better weather sounds fabulous. 🙂

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      • Thought of you today, Sherri. I just got back from a walking Oglethorpe tour (founder of GA) with my 2nd-grader’s class in the historic district of Savannah, and I felt like I was stuck in a ziplock bag. SOOOO humid. Ugh. i want to go take a shower now… Ick.

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  5. For me, that place was Helsinki, Finland. It was the first time in my life I felt free from American distractions, politics, black-and-white/either-or attitudes. My year there was quite simply the best year of my life.

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